Potiphar's wife
Potiphar's wife was an unnamed Egyptian woman who was married to Potiphar, the Captain of the Guard in the court of the contemporary Egyptian Pharaoh. She is well known for attempting to seduce the Old Testament Patriarch Joseph, despite being married to Potiphar. She is documented in the Book of Genesis. Biography Potiphar's Wife was married to Potiphar the Captain of the Pharaoh of Egypt's royal guard. This would have made her husband in a very prestigious position. She was the most prized thing that Potiphar had under his management, not allowing Joseph to have her; yet he was the manager over everything in their householdGen 39:10. She also seemed to recognize or knew that that Joseph was from across the water in Canaan. Following Potiphar's purchase of Joseph, she became attracted to the house master Gen 39:7 and asked him to sleep with her, to which he refused Gen 39:8-9. For days following that, she asked him repeatedly the same question whenever he was near her, and he refused each time, and ceased to go near her Gen 39:10 . This cycle would continue until one day, when no one else was in the house Gen 39:11, she ran up to to Joseph and grabbed his cloak, demanding that he have sex with her Gen 39:12. He then threw off the cloak, leaving it in her hand, and ran out of the house. After he had done this, she became angry with Joseph, and told the men and servants of the house that Joseph had attempted to rape her Gen 39:14 . She then laid his cloak by her bed until Potiphar returned home from the court of Ramses Gen 39:16. In anger of Joseph's refusal to be intimate with her she began to fabricate the lie that he had attempted to rape her. Leaving her cloak by her bed would serve as almost undeniable evidence, not to mention that Joseph may have been left naked since he had no cloak. She told her husband the lie that Joseph had tried to rape her Gen 39:17, and he became very angry with Joseph Gen 39:19. Potiphar then had Joseph locked away in the Royal PrisonGen 39:20. Legacy It is possible that there may be a ''very indirect ''(typological, but maybe unintentional) reference to Potiphar's Wife in one of Solomon's writings in the Book of Proverbs. Solomon describes an account (whether literal or parable) that an adulterous woman seduced a man outside of her palace, and she mentions purple sheets from Egypt spread on her bed; a possible indirect reference to Potiphar's Wife who lived in EgyptProv 7:16. Regardless the account of Potiphar's Wife attempted seduction and adultery is one of the earliest recorded accounts of adultery, being in the biblical Book of Genesis. This infatuation she had would forever be infamous as a prime example of a woman who would try to seduce men outside of her marriage, similar to that woman of Proverbs. Verses Category:Women Category:Old Testament People Category:Old Testament Women Category:Egyptians Category:Persons Category:People